“Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson I often say management is hard but not complex. Much of effective management involves common sense.  But just because something is common sense doesn’t mean it’s commonly practiced.  If management truly were easy, which it’s not, we’d never see national employee engagement levels hovering persistently around 30 percent .  Which we do. Keep in mind in this post I’m not talking about managing business activities as sophisticated, let’s say, as engineering culture change, or developing a cutting-edge new product, or altering the strategic direction of a company.  I’m talking about nuts-and-bolts day-to-day management.  I’m talking about managing your fundamental operations effectively, as all successful companies have to.  Which always involves one thing: getting the best out of your people on an ongoing basis. In this context, following are...